Solid waste: single-use carryout bags.

Existing law, until January 1, 2020, requires an operator of a store, as defined, to establish an at-store recycling program that provides to customers the opportunity to return clean plastic carryout bags to that store. With specified exceptions, this bill, as of January 1, 2015, would prohibit stores that have a specified amount of dollar sales or retail floor space from providing a single-use carryout bag to a customer. The bill, on and after July 1, 2016, would additionally impose this prohibition on convenience food stores, foodmarts, and certain other specified stores. The bill would require all of these stores to meet other specified requirements regarding providing recycled paper bags, compostable bags, or reusable grocery bags to customers. The bill would require a reusable grocery bag that a store is required to sell on and after July 1, 2016, to meet specified requirements. A violation of that requirement and the requirements that would be imposed upon grocery bag producers to submit certain laboratory test results would be subject to an administrative civil penalty assessed by the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery. The department would be required to deposit these penalties into the Reusable Bag Account, which would be created in the Integrated Waste Management Fund, for expenditure by the department, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to implement those requirements. The bill would allow a city, county, or city and county, or the state to impose civil penalties for a violation of the bill's requirements. The bill would require these civil penalties to be paid to the office of the city attorney, city prosecutor, district attorney, or Attorney General, whichever office brought the action, and would allow the penalties collected by the Attorney General to be expended by the Attorney General, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to enforce the bill's provisions. The bill would provide that these remedies are not exclusive, as specified. The bill would declare that it occupies the whole field of the regulation of reusable grocery bags, single-use carryout bags, and recycled paper bags and would prohibit a local public agency, on and after January 1, 2014, from enforcing or implementing an ordinance, resolution, regulation, or rule adopted on or after September 1, 2013, relating to those bags, unless expressly authorized. The bill would allow a local public agency that has adopted such an ordinance, resolution, regulation, or rule prior to September 1, 2013, to continue to enforce and implement that ordinance, resolution, regulation, or rule, but would require any amendments to that ordinance, resolution, regulation, or rule to be subject to state preemption.